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A few tips on getting the very best from your cheeses

Josie Evans, 21 Sep 2015

Caring for your cheese is easy once you understand that unlike slabs of factory-produced cheese, true artisan cheeses vary day to day. The key is to store the cheese at the right temperature and right humidity so that your cheese develops delicious, mature, intense flavours rather than going too far and tasting off. Cheeses generally store well when kept at 10 - 14 degrees but legislation states that to be kept refrigerated they must be stored under 8 degrees. This is especially important to adhere to with any fresh cheeses. As for humidity, most cheeses love 80% or more.

The ideal place for cheese to be kept is in a damp cellar or garage but this isn’t always possible so people, quite rightly, tend to turn to the fridge. This is a fine alternative provided that the fridge isn’t too cold and dry. It’s best to store the cheese either in a cardboard box in the fridge or in the salad drawer with the veggies as they provide some humidity. Check on your cheese regularly and don’t be afraid of mould; you can scrape this off with a knife. The main thing is it tastes good. After 5 years working with cheese I can assure you that some of the ugliest mouldy cheeses taste the best! Finally be sure to take the cheese out of the fridge about 2 hours before eating so that it warms up nicely, enhancing all those complex flavours.

One last thing...we wrap our cheeses in a paper that allows the cheese to breathe. If you wrap it in cling film it tends to get sweaty and produce funny flavours.

And that’s it. Simple really. Now you just need to come down to our shop in Borough Market, have a chat with us, taste some cheeses, and see for yourself.